The War of the Crimson Cheeks
by Thumbtax
Summary: Fionna is about to be honored for her thousandth heroic act with a statue in front of the palace, carved of finest rock candy and depicting her at her most heroic. But when Marshall Lee gets his hands on some embarrassing pictures of our heroine, he's got plans of his own...
1. Book of Memories

All character are the property of Pendleton Ward, Natasha Allegri, and Cartoon Network. If you enjoy this story, please leave a review-it's the best incentive to keep it going!

* * *

The blade of Fionna's sword tore through the air as she whirled it around in a wide arc.

_Click. Click. Click._ "Lookin' good, girl!"

She thrust it to one side, then the other, and then fell to one knee and held it straight up.

_Click. Click. _ "That's the stuff! Just try to put a _little_ more action into it!"

"More...action?" Fionna panted. She'd been swinging the sword around for almost half an hour-the numerous deep gashes and divots cut into the lawn around their tree were testament to how long and how hard she'd been "fighting". She was starting to feel just a little worn out.

"Little more," Cake clarified, stretching up and down as she looked through the camera, trying to find best angle. "Try to visualize the Ice Queen smooching your honey, and pretend you're swingin' the sword right in her face!"

"But I don't want to _kill _her," Fionna protested.

"Oh, pretend you're using the flat end, then. And give me a nice battle cry, 'kay?"

"But the camera won't record a battle cry-not that kind of camera anyway-"

"Fionna!" Cake snapped. "That's two buts I've heard now, and the only two buts I _want _to hear are your butt kicking the Ice Queen's butt!" She smoothed back her raised fur and said calmly, "It makes it look more realistic that way."

"Fine, fine." Fionna picked up the sword again. "Rrrrrrr!"

"Good energy!"

"_Ice Queeeeeeeen!_ _Get your claws off of Prince Gumball, you frozen hag!_" She swung the sword with all her might, taking a sizable chunk out of the stump she was pretending was the Ice Queen's face.

"Yikes!" Cake said, stretching herself out of the way of the backswing. "What happened to using the flat side?"

"Oh." Fionna blushed. "Sorry. I guess I got caught up in the moment."

"Don't apologize! That's what we were trying for!" Cake said, shaking the photo a few times. "Look at that! It came out great!"

"It does look pretty cool! We should use this one!"

"Naah," Cake said. "The balance is wrong. You can't use that pose for the statue in front of the palace! How's Prince Gumball gonna appreciate your fine rock candy bod if it falls over on him and skwushes him into a wad?"

"Uhmm..."

"It's really a keeper, though! I'm gonna stick this one in the scrapbook!" Cake stretched one paw up to the top window of the tree and retrieved a thick book bound in monster leather. A few loose photographs fluttered down like autumn leaves.

"Oops. We'd better make a trip to the Glue Kingdom next chance we get, so we don't lose these precious memories," Cake said, wriggling like a whip as she snatched up every last photo and stuffed them back into place.

"So, look, why don't I just raise my sword over my head or something? That's pretty heroic looking, right?"

"Heroic looking? Who's the photography expert here, me or you?"

"Uh... neither of us really knows anything about-"

"Who dug up all the cameras?"

Fionna sighed. "You."

"That's right! Now, do the same thing again, but this time try to stick your butt out a little more on the downswing. That'll counterbalance the sword."

"Cake!" Fionna protested. "Prince Gumball's going to be able to see this from his _window! _I don't want him staring at my butt every day!"

"When you've got it, girl, it doesn't hurt to advertise," Cake muttered.

"Hmmph. Okay, we'll try it your way." Fionna raised the sword again. "_How dare you touch Prince Gumball, you evil-ack!_"

She ended up face-first in the grass.

"Don't stick it out that far!" Cake started, but she was drowned out by a burst of laughter from above. Fionna rolled over in time to see a dark figure materializing against the deep and luscious greens of the canopy.

"Marshall Lee!" Cake hissed. "You get out of here! This is a private photography session!"

"Sorry. I didn't mean for you to hear me. I just couldn't help myself, you know?" He hopped off the branch and towards the ground. "Hey, Fionna."

She ignored the hand he was offering and pointedly jumped to her feet on her own. "Hello, Marshall Lee."

"What is all this biz anyway?"

"Oh, uh, it's really not that big a deal. I rescued some candy people from the stomach of an evil cloud turtle, and they sort of...want to build a statue of me, now."

"It's not just for that!" Cake said. "It's to commemorate your one thousandth heroic act."

"But that's what adventurers do!" Fionna protested. "True adventurers aren't supposed to get things for helping people."

"What about when we saved Tree Trunks from that genie skeleton and he made us that pot of his famous five-alarm chili?"

"He would have made it anyway! And we would have eaten it anyway! So that doesn't count!"

"Hey, if Prince Stickybutt wants a chunk of candy to look at, let him," Marshall Lee said with a half-smirk. "I'd rather scope the real thing."

Fionna was suddenly aware of how close he'd drifted to her. She could see one of his little fangs exposed, the tip pushing into the dark grey of his lips, and she could smell the musky vampire scent. It wasn't disgusting or rotten; it was mild and earthy, like a hint of cool, rich soil after a rain.

She really hoped her breath didn't still smell like chili.

"Mmm," Marshall said, putting his lips to her cheek. She could feel her face getting hot.

"M-marshall, hey," she laughed nervously, "what are you-"

Then she felt the blush fading. Marshall stepped back, licking his lips. "Mmm-mmm. I should embarrass you more often."

Suddenly a yellow-and-white net exploded around him and the Vampire King was tangled up on the ground. A particularly thick strand of netting with angrily at him.

"What's the big idea, Marshall Lee? If you turn her grey, you're gonna end up black and blue!"

"Relax," Marshall laughed, turning into a bat for just long enough to slip through the fleshy strands. "I've only been doing this for a thousand years. I think I know what I'm doing. Hey, what's _this?_"

He picked up the dropped scrapbook and flipped through the pages. "You've already got a zillion photos here. Why not use one of them?"

"They're not that great," Fionna said.

"Oh, there have to be _some_ good pics in here." He pulled out a picture. "How about this one?"

Fionna looked at it. It was one of the earliest pictures in the album, and depicted a baby girl in a bunny hood running through the grass with no diaper on.

"Ha, ha, yeah, right, Marshall. I think they want one where I'm a _little _bigger than that."

"Bigger, huh?" Marshall flipped through the pages. "Whoa. Speaking of. So _this_ is what you look like when you let it all hang out."

He flipped over the picure to reveal a shot of a distinctly chubby-looking Fionna asleep on the couch, a half-empty ice-cream carton resting on her pot belly.

"Wh-no!" Fionna said. "That's not me! I mean... it is me, but it's just because we found these businesswomen frozen in some ice and we got a little lazy! I don't look like that anymore!"

"Yeah, 'cause you're sucking it in."

"I am not!" Fionna said hotly. "I'm in totally exponential shape!"

"Come on," Marshall said, poking her middle. "Let go. Embrace your inner butterball."

"Hey! Hands off my gut-meats, mister!"

"Okay, okay. Well, let's see, there's this picture...

-_Fionna, after she shaved her head to make a beard for that evil tree wizard_-

"Or this one, maybe..."

-_that time she got all her clothes stolen in the middle of the City of Thieves-_-

"Or maybe this..."

-_the time the Magic Woman turned her into a giant foot!_-

"Cake, why did you take all these pictures, anyway?" Fionna muttered sourly.

"They'll make magical memories someday," the cat said. "If that nasty boy doesn't shmurtz them all up with his vampire claws!"

"I'm not going to hurt your pics," Marshall said, twirling the book lazily on one finger. "In fact, I'm going to help. I'll pick out the very best photo and deliver it to the royal sculptor myself."

"That's okay. Really." Fionna reached for the album, but Marshall was already drifting towards the edge of the shadow and unfolding his umbrella.

"Oh, it's no trouble. Besides, there's things in here that ol' Pinky just _has_ to see. And your face _does_ turn the tastiest shade of red."

"Marshall!-" she began, but he was already lifting off into the sky, fading away as he did so. Cake's arms shot out after him, but it was too late. He was already gone.

"You don't think he'd really..." Fionna said nervously.

"Oh, Fionna." Cake frowned. "_Of course he would! That jealous jerk is gonna try to ruin your reputation with Prince Gumball! You gotta go stop him_!" She spread her body out as tall and wide as a sail. "I'm gonna try and catch him in the air! _You _make for the palace, and you _better_ run like your pride depends on it!"


	2. Smirched!

This chapter is dedicated to Natasha Allegri, who I just now today met at Emerald City Comic Con, and to any of my readers who may have been among the enormous horde of Finns and Fionnas there!

* * *

Fionna had never run here from the treehouse so fast in her life. Painful stitches ran up and down her sides. Her chest burned as if she'd just inhaled a lungful of Fire Kingdom air. Her legs felt like they were about to drop off. But the thought of Marshall Lee handing all her most embarrassing photos over to Prince Gumball drove her on, through the outlying farms, across the candied paving stones, to the courtyard of the the royal palace.

Spearmint Maid was directing a work crew as they unloaded an enormous block of freshly-quarried rock candy. "Be careful!" she said. "And make sure you stand it up straight, now!"

"Now, now, Starchi knows what she's doin'," Starchi said, leaning against the slab. "Oh, hullo there, Miss Fionna!"

"H-hiiiiiii..." Fionna wheezed. Real adventurers always acknowledged a hearty greeting, even when they were about to collapse from exhaustion. She tottered through the courtyard and forced herself to take the steps three at a time.

She stopped at the top just long enough to glance back at the sky over the grasslands. She could still see a patch of gold and white against the blue. Cake was spread out like a kite, swooping along the air currents trying to catch Marshall.

Which meant he'd probably gotten past her. Fionna hastily gulped down some air and charged into the palace, through the Great Hall, up six steep flights of stairs, and into the long corridor that led to Prince Gumball's personal chambers. Her legs pumped madly as she tore down the passage.

Just when the prince's door was in sight, something long and skinny shot out in front of her, and she went flying. She sailed a good twenty feet before slamming into the carpet.

"Owwww..." she muttered into the rich magenta pile.

"Nnnnnnyou're trying to get ahead of us!" screeched a piercing voice. "You have no right, no right!"

"That's right, sister! That's right! No right! We were here first. NNNNNYYYAAA!"

Fionna picked herself off the carpet and turned to face the two women. Skinny and yellow-peeled, they were as alike as twins, except that one wore a gown of pure white and hid her face behind a matching fan, while the other's dress and fan were black...and also, one of the second twin's lanky legs was stretched right across the hall.

"Hey! What the fletch was that, Contessa?" Fionna snapped. "You just tripped me!"

"LIAR!" the first Contessa d'Lemongrab shrieked. "We are here to see Father, yes, here on urgent business. We were here first!"

"We can put our legs where we want! They are our legs!"

"Yes, sister! She should mind her own legs!"

"Yes, she should! Indeed!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Fionna caught a dark shape passing by the window. She turned to see Marshall, grinning at her from under the dark canopy of his umbrella.

"Marshall!" She ran to the window. "You didn't-"

He handed her the album. "Here you go."

"Oh. Phew."

"A little bat already dropped the _best_ pictures off on Pink-Boy's windowsill." He smiled at her.

"WHAT?" Fionna turned to the door to Gumball's private chambers. "Oh, _smoo!_"

She sprinted the rest of the way to the door. There was a peanut-brittle placard hanging on the handle with the words _Busy Doing Science, Yo_, which she ripped off without hesitation.

"Our turn first!" one of the Contessae shrieked. "We must speak to Father!"

"The garbage cans in our castle are full! They must be replaced with new, empty cans _immediately-eeeeeeeee!_"

The door was locked tight. Fionna pulled out her sword. This was an _emergency._ Putting all her muscle into it, she sliced through the thick candy wood and smashed through the doorway.

Prince Gumball was sitting at his desk by the window, dressed in his lab coat, some experiment involving a pumpkin, a jar of centipedes, and a bubbling beaker of fizzy green liquid spread out in front of him. He was neatly cutting an envelope with the Royal Letter-Opener.

"Noooooo!" Fionna cried, jumping across the room and snatching the envelope out of his surprised hands.

"Fionna, what-"

"You can't look at this. I-I gotta get rid of it!" She looked around. "I'll eat it!"

She opened wide, but Prince Gumball plucked the letter out of her fingers before she could stuff it in her mouth. "Fionna! What's gotten into you?" he asked, frowning. "The Feast of Personal Correspondence isn't for two months."

He glanced down at the envelope. "But, but this is from _you!_ Ah, this must be the model for the statue. I'm glad you finally sent it along so we can get started."

"No! Don't look at it!"

"Fionna?" He looked puzzled.

"It's...it's... a really bad shot! I'll send you the real one...later."

"There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?" He peered at her. "Did you accidentally take pictures of another Medusa?"

"No, it's just..." She gulped. "MarshallLeestolesomesuperper sonalphotosfrommeandhestotal lytryingtoembarrassmebygivin gthemtoyyou!"

"Oh. Oh, I see!" Gumball said. He quickly put the letter down on the desk and pushed it away. "Of course I won't look at it."

"Oh, thank glob."

"As a prince, I would never do anything so uncouth as to peep at a lady's embarrassing business. Especially when that lady is the one who's toiled so tirelessly to keep the Candy Kingdom safe from monsters. I'll dispatch a phalanx of banana guards to bring that ruffian to justice."

"Uh, the only thing that'll get you is a lot of banana pudding." Fionna laughed. "Anyway, I don't really want to arrest him or anything. I just kind of want to-"

"Get him back?"

"_Ohhhhhh_ yeah."

Prince Gumball looked back and forth. "Follow me."

"To where?"

"Marshall Lee attempted to besmirch your honor. We must adjourn to the Chamber of Resmirchment to proceed. Come, over here."

"That's your pantaloon closet."

"No, it's the Chamber of Resmirchment. I just don't use it very much, so I keep my pantaloons in there too."

The Chamber of Resmirchment was a small fudge-brick room with a holder in the middle for a torch. With the flame lit and burning an eerie green-orange, it was easy to forget about all the pantaloons.

"Under Candy Kingdom law, any attack on the champion of the Candy Kingdom is an attack on me," Gumball intoned, the eldritch light playing over his face. "An attempt was made on my champion, and as ruler, I do solemnly swear that I shall not rest until the fell Vampire King is _totally gotten back _for his misdeeds."

"Pants on fire."

"That was a royal vow, Fionna, I assure you it was one hundred percent truthful."

"No, I mean, _pants on fire!_"

"Oh." He patted out the flame playing over the cuff of one of the pantaloons, which had dragged across the torch. "Excuse me."

"No problem." Fionna grinned. "Back to the him-getting?"

"Of course."


	3. Nemesis

"But how are we going to embarrass Marshall Lee?" Fionna asked. "I mean, I don't think it'll be easy. He's pretty cool."

"As with everything in life, with the help of SCIENCE, of course," Gumball explained. He wheeled his white chocolate whiteboard into the Chamber of Resmirchment and began covering it with equations. "By analyzing Tramnoid's Curve, we see that the embarrassment potential for any life-form peaks in late puberty, while that potential is minimized at the extreme ends of the lifespan; the least prone to embarrassment, and hence the least guarded, are those in infancy or old age. So, by taking evidence from each tail of the curve and applying it here at the apex, we can maximum the effectiveness of our attempt."

"Uhh?"

"If we show off his baby pictures in public, he'll be _super embarrassed_," Gumball clarified.

"Oh!" Fionna scratched her head. "Uh, but Marshall's a thousand years old. If he even has baby pictures, they're probably underground or at the bottom of the sea by now."

"Yes, I thought of that. That's why we're going to make _new_ baby pictures."

"Huh? How?"

Gumball looked around the small room, carefully, as if someone might be hiding in the pantaloons.

"Have you ever heard of the Mountain of Youth?"

* * *

Fionna and Cake trudged up the rocky trail, an icy wind lashing them with flecks of hail and gravel from the poorly-maintained path. Cake had stretched herself out to twenty feet, and was wrapped around Fionna's neck like a warm, cozy scarf.

"Well, I don't like this," the cat grumbled, her voice modulating oddly as her head whipped around in the breeze. "I still say we just oughtta catch that boy and knock some sense into his moldy old undead head."

"Cake! That wouldn't be cool! He was going to embarrass us, so we're going to embarrass him. It's, you know, karma."

"Well, I wouldn't have taught you about the path to inner peace and perfect balance if I'd know you would use it as an excuse to get out of handing out butt-whoopings."

"Butt-whoopings are always more fun when they come at the end of a big adventure!" Fionna said cheerfully. "And we might end up getting to whoop the Ice Queen's. Prince Gumball said we had to get water from the Mountain of Youth, and the only mountains made of water I know are in her kingdom."

"Whooping Marshall Lee's butt would be more fun, though," Cake muttered.

"Now that you mention it, you're probably right," Fionna said slyly. "That _would_ be fun."

"Get your mind out of the gutter! I didn't mean it like that!"

"Too bad, I'm putting it on the list." Fionna pulled a notebook covered with glitter and puffy stickers and bearing the title 'BIG ADVENTURE IDEA LIST' out of her backpack, flipped it open, and started to write.

"Fionna! You're not really putting that down!"

"Maybe I am and maybe I'm not."  
"That's _permanent marker! Fionna!" _Cake twined herself around Fionna's arm and snapped at the pen. "If you put it down then you have to do it!"

"Oh, too bad, I guess I just have to do it, then!"

Cake wove herself between Fionna's legs, the girl tottered and fell over.

"Ow." Fionna giggled. "Heh heh."

Cake laughed as well. Pretty soon both of them were lying on the ground, whooping it up.

"Ooooh," Fionna said, finally, getting a grip on herself. "I think I sprained my stomach or something."

"Ahaha." Cake wiped away a tear.

Fionna padded the ground next to her. "Rats."

"Rats, what?"

"Rats, I think I dropped the pen over the cliff."

They broke out into giggles again.

"So is everyone invited to this party, or do you have to submit proof that you're a total banana bar?" said a familiar voice. Marshall Lee appeared in front of them, floating a few feet above the path. Fionna rolled to her feet hurriedly, and Cake took a step back, her hair standing up and her back arched the way only a magic shape-shifting cat can.

"This is a private adventure!" she said.

"Hey, it's cool. Room for one more?"

"Sorry, Marshall," Fionna said with a grin. "You can't go on this one."

"Why not?"

"Oh, you'll find out soon enough. It's a secret."

"Trying to get me back for the thing with the album?"

"Uh...maybe, maybe not."

"Stooping to my level. I like it." He smiled, showing off his sharp little fangs. "It means I'm corrupting you."

"Hey! You don't get to act all happy about this! You totally tried to embarrass me, and now I'm gonna return the favor!"

"Poor, poor Fionna. We both know this is gonna end with me slurping up that tasty red out of your cheeks. Why not give up now?"

"No way!" Fionna pointed dramatically. "You're going down!"

"You tell him!" Cake cheered.

"Ooh. I'm glad to hear it." Marshall leaned forward. "'Cause it means I get to be your _nemesis._ This is gonna be fun."

"Yeah, well... we'll see if you think it's so fun when I...when I..." Fionna shut her mouth, with some difficulty; _don't spill the beans!_ she warned herself.

"When you whoop my butt?" the vampire boy said, putting his arms behind his head and floating lazily upward. "I don't know, Fionna, it sounds like you're maybe a little too into my butt, you know?"

"You heard that? I mean-n-no I'm not!" Fionna blushed.

"Oh, yeah, there's that yummy blush." Marshall spun around in the air, so he was lying face down. "Now let's see if we can ripen it up a little. I'm gonna make you glow like a radioactive beet before this adventure is finished."

"Oh yeah? And how exactly do you intend to do that?"

"You'll find out," Marshall said, fading out with an evil chuckle. "And then I'm gonna _drink you up!_"


End file.
